


Six

by laurelofthestory



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Character Development, Character Study, Gen, Half-Siblings, Sibling Bonding, True Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 05:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16675660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laurelofthestory/pseuds/laurelofthestory
Summary: Six times on its adventure, the Ghost of Hallownest meets the Gendered Child. Only the last time do they work together.A study on the growth of a little ghost as it realizes it can choose its own fate.





	Six

**Author's Note:**

> Funny how I can be so frustrated with a game while playing it, and yet fall in love with its lore.
> 
> This is more of a mess of a character study than anything else done in about a day because I couldn't stop thinking, getting out my thoughts on how the Knight might grow and develop and react to things as they figure out their purpose. 
> 
> As much as I'd love these two to have a proper sibling relationship, I just don't see Hornet being willing to offer that kind of trust to _just another Vessel._ It'd take more time, and unfortunately, it's time they don't have. ...Though that's what AUs are for!

The first time it meets Hornet, it’s nowhere near self-aware enough to realize who she is or what she’s actually talking about when she claims to be trying to stop it from reaching some goal. Indeed, in those early endeavors, it was doing little more than following along a pull of some invisible string, going where it was directed, trying to follow the instructions burned into its shell, the words and runes that constantly hung behind its eyes. All it really knows about Hornet is that Hornet raises her needle against it, and it raises its nail in return, and they clash. It can feel a little stirring of admiration somewhere within; she’s the hardest and most worthy opponent it’s faced so far, the way she fights is fascinating to it, and it has a faint, muted desire to learn more.

But it doesn’t get the chance. She disappears, and it’s sort of glad it didn’t kill her, but also can't feel all that much about it either way. It looks down at the mask of the corpse that had rested on the ground near her feet, and it vaguely registers that it looks similar to its own mask, but it decides not to think about it. It takes the cloak the corpse was wearing, and throws it around its own shoulders, and feels a new strength surge through it. The knight decides it likes this new feeling, and it silently thanks the strange warrior before moving on.

The second time it meets Hornet, it’s in the City of Tears looking up at the statue. It can read, and it reads the inscription under the statue, and it can’t help but feel a sense of familiarity as it looks up into the carving’s empty eyes, a memory flickering at the edge of its consciousness before it quickly fades back into nothing, just like everything else.

Hornet appears out of nowhere, and it briefly considers how her mask is similar to the statue’s. She speaks cryptically, about a sacrifice, about a grave in ash and a mark for _someone like it._ She also inadvertently grants it the realization of why everything seems to be missing; it does not remember why it had originally gone past the Howling Cliffs, not yet, but it remembers being called back by some force, its first memory being falling from the cliffs. It had left, and it had managed to find its way back, and it knew that few bugs had been so lucky.

The third time it meets Hornet, it’s beginning to ‘wake up’. It now clearly notices the similarities between the two of them, and it’s aware enough to actually enjoy their combat, as difficult as it is. It even feels indignance at her insinuation that it is weak--it feels a deep, burning desire to prove itself, to prove that _yes, it can do this,_ whatever it is that it's truly meant to do (something about a sacrifice, a terrible truth it has to face).

She knows it better than it knows itself, it realizes as it watches her fly off with her needle and thread. It feels sadness, longing, feelings altogether new to it. As it takes on the King’s Brand, it feels pain, and also a certain familiarity (a glance, a voice, a disappointment, nothing certain).

The fourth time it meets Hornet, it knows what it is. Not exactly how it came to be, or why, or what its past was, but it knows it’s born of the Abyss, it knows the mask gives it form and purpose and maybe even something like sentience. It’s looked its siblings in the eye and seen the similarities between them, and now it looks at Hornet and feels the same connection. Maybe not care, not yet, but a familiarity. Hornet is a constant, a rock, something that doesn’t change, something it knows is fully a part of _this_ life it's living, and not whatever life came before.

She has faith in it, and it stands up straighter and taller. She says that it must face a choice; to prolong the world’s stasis or face the heart of its infection, and it thinks to itself, why _wouldn’t_ it want to change things, but the instructions, the words burned into its consciousness, say no, that is not its purpose. But if that is not its purpose, then what is? What would happen if it tried to go against those words?

The fifth time it meets Hornet, it’s unexpectedly, when it awakens to see her sitting by the now-unoccupied plinth where Herrah the Beast once laid. It finds itself a little startled by her appearance, but she doesn’t seem to notice it waking up until it walks over to her and hesitantly reaches out to tap her shoulder, half worried she’ll skewer it with her needle before giving it a second glance. Her head whips around sharply, and her hand does travel to her needle, but she does not pull it out. 

Hornet has a face behind her mask, while it doesn't. Like she said at the Abyss, she is not like it, not really, and it knows this as it can’t understand the look it sees in her eyes.

She talks of a mother, and what it heard in the Beast’s mind suddenly makes sense. It isn’t sure how to feel, because emotions are new and confusing and feel _wrong._ But it knows mothers can be important things to some bugs. It doesn’t think it’s ever had a mother (the ghost of another life lingers, whispering that it _might_ have, once, but that life is long gone). It thinks it’s probably supposed to feel bad, but Hornet seems all right with what has happened.

She tells it to go away and leave her in peace, but somehow, it can’t pull itself away. It’s not so much care it feels, but curiosity, and it watches her for a moment before it’s drawn to sit down next to her. It unsheathes its nail and sets it in front of it, and it lowers its head like it saw her doing when it woke.

It isn’t sure what the look she gives it really means, but it wants to believe the gesture offered some comfort as it takes its nail up again and walks away. 

It can’t help but notice that she watches it intently as it leaves.

The last time they meet Hornet, it’s at the Temple of the Black Egg. By then, they are awake and they remember, and the fact that they feel happiness when they see her standing outside the door is just another reminder of how and why they’re _wrong, wrong, wrong,_ why they _can’t_ do the one thing they were made to do, why they’re _broken_ and _defective_ because they were never _supposed_ to feel or think or be this aware of what they were doing and what was going to happen to them.

They were never supposed to have a _choice_ , and yet here they were, having already made it, the Void Heart resting within them, prepared for whatever was to come.

She’s still cold, and they still can’t interpret her expression, or the way she stands, or the tone in her voice. But she tells them again, _this is their choice, they have the strength to make that choice,_ and it helps them prepare for what’s to come. They know what it is they’re about to face--the chosen sibling, the one supposedly rendered hollow and perfect, the one they could never be; but perhaps _because_ they could never be that sibling, they could create a different fate.

Hornet has a voice, and they don’t. They wonder what they would say if they could speak, or if she’d even listen. They wonder what they’re supposed to do as a means of saying goodbye because that’s something they’ve seen is important to a lot of bugs, and something a lot of bugs in these times never got a chance to say.

“Well? Are you going?”

One hand rests on her hip as the other holds her needle at her side. They look at her--their supposed sister--with their empty sockets, and they think and think and think, and they’re not used to thinking at all but it feels like they should do _something._

So they unsheath their nail, set it in front of them, and bow as deeply as they can to her, just as they’d done in the Beast’s chamber. As much as she may have dismissed them, she had been the one to help them realize they had a choice, and they hope the gesture will suffice as gratitude.

They feel her hand on their shoulder and look up at her.

“Now is not the time, little ghost. Stand tall, and let your darkness grant you strength for this battle and what lies after it, whichever path you choose. I will see you there.”

From what they've seen and heard and learned, siblings are usually a little kinder to each other than she is to them. But her voice isn’t as sharp as it was when they first met, and they suppose that’s about as good as they’re going to get. They nod, sheathe their nail, and step back, and with one final look her way, they enter. 

They hear her following them to the threshold, but no further.

The final time they see Hornet, it’s in the midst of the battle between them and their cursed sibling, when she flies in with a fierce cry and pins the taller vessel and pierces their shell, and their core of void and infection is exposed. She gives them a look, and they know this is the moment their choice will decide all of their fates.

They raise their Dream Nail, and they want to think that their sister is proud of the choice they’ve made.


End file.
